Tag: WWII

Let Go and Let God

“The Lord has broken through my enemies before me like a breaking flood.”         2 Samuel 5:20

“What good can come of this situation?” Is a question most of us have asked from time to time. We find ourselves in a negative situation where there seems to be no good answer. And you may be feeling anxious about it. Figuratively speaking, you’re starting to think that the walls are closing in on you.

Well, nothing could be further from the truth. Don’t let your emotions run ahead of your decision making. Stay calm, and breath deeply. And let some good old common sense come into your mind. Or in other words: Let go and let God do His work in the situation.

My maternal grandpa was born in a chaotic situation when good choices were few and far between. Even in spite of that, I believe God’s hand was in it, and the best choice was made.

His mother was from one of the most rural areas of Western North Carolina. And it still is. Few outsiders travel to those areas. An outsider brings suspicion on him or herself. I know because I’ve gone looking for headstones throughout WNC. And I have been asked what I was doing there even with NC plates and having a pronounced WNC southern accent.

Back to my grandfather. His entire life story could be summed up in that one phrase, “Let go and let God do His work in this situation.” Through some effort I’ve been able to weave together the highlights of his life. And, in reading it you’ll see what I’m talking about.

First, he is the only grandpa I knew in my growing up years. My Dad’s dad died of a massive heart attack when my dad turned thirteen years old. He was in his forties and had three of his four children still at home. My paternal grandmother immediately started working in the Knoxville, TN school cafeteria. Not much time to grieve back then. All of that happened during the Great Depression.

My maternal grandfather was born to a fifteen-year-old unmarried girl. She was not quite a woman, but no child either. My math tells me she was pregnant at fourteen and turned fifteen a few months before my grandpa was born. She died a few years later giving birth to her second child, also a son, also illegitimate.

My grandpa’s dad was in his early twenties when the teenage girl from down the road delivered his first child, in 1898. He had just started operating the only grocery store in that whole community. That’s where most likely the two met. Was their quick union consensual? I don’t know. All I know is that my grandpa’s dad rejected his first born and despised the ground his son walked on. That I know to be a fact.

My grandpa’s dad did marry later and had one son. I have a picture of that man and he looks a lot like my grandpa. The resemblance between the two is striking and leaves no doubt that they were brothers, right down to both being small frame wiry looking men. Both had fair skin, slicked back trimmed blond hair, that framed narrow faces.  The eye set, what I call “the look” is the same on both men.

My grandpa, as a child moved from house to house in that community until he reached twelve years of age. He never talked about his childhood but my mother and her sister have shared some memories of their childhood and what they remembered being told about their parents childhoods.

The 1900 Census shows grandpa’s teenage mother living with her parents, but no mention of a boy toddler in the home. The 1910 Census shows him living with his paternal grandmother who had been widowed just prior to that. Then he was sent across the state line to another relative’s farm to pick peaches in Georgia. From there he went to Rome, GA to the Berry’s School for orphaned children where he learned a trade.

Then, in 1917 he left Berry’s School to enter the Navy. Berry College’s archival department had his name on their attendance roll. It doesn’t look like he graduated but being older he just left.

From there Grandpa caught the train to Atlanta and went straight into the Navy. He sailed for France on a frigate. The early idea of that type of ship was that most everyone was a machinist of some type or other. There were guns on the larger ships that required maintenance, ships engines required maintenance, etc. I have a copy of his discharge papers that shows all his assignments.

Experiencing Rejection Twice

After WWI he comes back to the rural community that he was born in. The place where he was rejected in. The place where his dad still ran the only store there. The place where he didn’t have much of a chance at attending school, if any at all.

That was the place where, in his early childhood he had to go from house to house wondering if he could just stay there long enough to work during the Spring planting season. Or the harvesting season. Or the cold Winter season. And who or where did he get a coat from when it snowed? And we usually have a few snowfalls here in WNC every Winter.

Where did this boy get clothes? And shoes for those cold months? Who took care of him when he gashed his knee wide opened? Did any maternal woman give him just one reassuring hug during those early years? Who showed him how to be a responsible man? Which, he did grow up to become very responsible.

My big question is “Why do we always go back to where we’ve experienced the most pain in our lives? What good can come of that?” I’ve done that too and I don’t have any great nor even a good answer to this question.

If you are thinking closure, then maybe you’re not old enough to know the difference between that or just trying to move on with life. If closure were a creature it would be the most elusive living thing on Earth to catch. There is no trap strong enough or quick enough to catch closure. So, let’s all agree to stop trying to catch it.

Well, from there grandpa moves to the nearest bustling community and meets my granny. They married in the early nineteen twenties. I don’t know the exact year, but my mother was born in nineteen twenty-six, she had two older brothers and one younger sister. They attended a Calvary style church that was in walking distance all of my mother’s growing up years.

About 1930 grandpa almost died from falling off an elevated platform onto a concrete floor at a factory he worked at. In falling he cracked his skull open and had “brain bleed.”

The hospital must’ve been close by because he survived a rare operation. Most people with head injuries died back then before they could get to a doctor. Grandpa’s scalp was sliced open and the skin peeled back. Then, the doctor screwed a metal plate over the crack. Of course, this was all done under anesthesia or morphine induced sleep.

Well, long story short, my grandparents went back to farming near the community my granny was from. They both grew up farming and knew it the best. Plus, the metal plate caused my grandpa to have seizures, so he never worked a regular job nor ever drove after that surgery.

They worked their way into owning fifteen acres of wooded farmland that included a livable house. They closed in a “dog trot” back porch and turned it into an indoor bathroom in 1946. My mother was already married to my dad by that time.

Their two sons joined the Navy during WWII. Both came home from the war, quickly married, and moved off. My mother and her sister worked in the naval yard in Panama City, FL as riveters during some of WWII. Then, they attended Knoxville Business school. It was in Knoxville that they met their future husbands, one being my dad.

My parents settled down about fifty miles East of my grandparents in Asheville, NC. By then they had all of us five kids. A few years later my dad convinced my mother to quit her steady factory job and try an idea he had about getting into the souvenir business near the Cherokee Indian Reservation. That one idea made them millionaires several times over.

My grandparents’ four children had seventeen children, collectively speaking. Of those seventeen; three became teachers or connected to Univ. of TN. One obtained her PhD. Another cousin joined the Navy and made Chief Petty Officer within thirteen years. I’m happy to say that all of us siblings and cousins became the “Salt of the Earth” type of people.

It’s always best to let go and let God takeover our problems.  Life is too short to do otherwise.

Living in the Gap of Expectations

  •  “casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7 ESV

How is living in the gap of expectations working out for you? Well, “what is the gap of expectations” you ask?

When you or I set out to accomplish a goal whether short lived or long range, our expectations are to arrive at that goal, right?

What if the goal is not the end result, though, despite your own best efforts? And, needless to say that others are going to disappoint us also. So, in the end, how well do you adjust to disappointment? Do you linger in an emotional “free-fall” going in and out of depression?

Or do you find yourself telling everyone, “I can handle it.” Or, “I’m fine.” If that’s true than good. But, I believe many of us say those cliches without really meaning it. We could be experiencing an emotional free-fall without fully realizing it.

There is a gap of emotional “free-fall” between expectations and the end result when our goals have not been met. Some of us adjust very quickly and re-prioritize our goals. That’s truly fantastic when it happens.  And I’m happy for you if you’re able to do that when you experience a failure, unexpected bad news, or that life just seems hard right now.

I’m, of course, writing to the ones that don’t easily adjust to the disappointing way of how things have turned out. Especially  when this happens, as it’s going to do, throughout parts of our lives. Not all the time, though, thank goodness.

We really don’t know what we can and cannot handle. It’s not just a cliche that we can be our own enemy. It’s true. And because it’s true, I think we end up self-medicating more than what we want to admit to. I’m guilty of that, too. But when disappointment happens we need to be spiritually and emotionally ready.

One thing that’s helped me the most in overcoming disappointments in my life is the Cognitive Behavior Therapy I’ve had over the last two and a half years on a bi-monthly basis.

Me being more fully engaged in my emotional well-being by going to therapy has helped me to see a more clearer perspective of my different life’s challenges. And it has increased my problem solving capabilities. Or put another way, I’ve learned to think “outside the box” of my own “self-thought” and “couple-thought” of my marriage.

Through the years I’ve tried group therapy and “dropping in” therapy; i.e. staying long enough to feel better then not going back.  And, my husband, Jeff and I have gone to marriage counseling, which we needed. I’m glad he willingly went with me. The end result of our couple counseling has been that Jeff was prescribed some anti-anxiety medication, which he still willingly takes. He says he feels better. And, he does communicate with me and now our extended family on a more positive note.

We wouldn’t have been able to figure out his particular issues all on our own. His past issues along with mine kept us “locking horns” over many issues throughout our four decades and counting marriage. The end result was usually anger, bitterness, and frustration.

Jeff is a “late” baby, and a “replacement” baby, born in 1952. His only living sibling was already married before he started school. And the middle sibling closest in age to him was several years older, passing away with a congenital heart disorder in his teens.

Jeff grew up nearly having an “only child” experience. As a result of that he “sub-consciously” expected to be pampered in his adult life, just like his mother had done during his childhood years.

In part, our childhood “shapes” who we turn out to be in our  adult years. The other part being our individual genetics.

Well, I’ll admit to doing my best to pamper him. That is part of a wife’s role in marriage. And, yes there have been times I’ve found doing this to be quite draining and I believe it added to my already low-grade of depression. But, I couldn’t see this situation clearly all on my own, and didn’t know the “why” of it all until we went to counseling.

Jeff’s mother was an angry, controlling person. She had a difficult personality, to say the least. But his dad was the opposite; he was mellow and pleased with all that he had accomplished in his life.

Both of his parents were about ten years older than my parents. Jeff’s mom was a teenager and his dad had just turned twenty when they married during the height of the Great Depression. My parents were married in their early twenty’s after WWII in 1946.

I was born in 1952, also. So he and I are both “baby boomers.” But I had an entirely different upbringing.  My parents were caring, but sometimes harsh throughout their lives. Plus, I’m the youngest of five children all born within a little more than six years. My dad wasn’t big on parenting us kids, leaving that responsibility to my mother.

My mom, worked hard to keep all of us “glued together” with wonderful meals, kept us three girls busy with cleaning the house, and she always kept an “outside the home” job, as well. There was always a lot of responsibility on my mother’s shoulders.

So when Jeff and I married in our mid-twenties we had different expectations of each other’s role in our lives from the beginning. And through the years, we haven’t always met each other’s expectations either.

All of my and our counseling efforts have had many good results, though. Another idea is to read some small portion of the Bible daily. You can go to Bible Gateway and find several plans to help you read through the Bible on a daily basis. I’ve done this for years and years through self-directed Bible studies. By now I don’t feel like my day is complete without reading at least a short devotion.  And pray often throughout your day.

“pray without ceasing,” 1 Thessalonians 5:17

Above all else, don’t let anxiety rule your day and your life. Anxiety is normally the outflow of two root negative emotions: fear and anger. Solve those two emotions through counseling, medication when needed, Bible study, and prayer. Doing this will help you adjust to having a more positive outlook on life in spite of whatever life “throws” at you.

Taking this action will make life more pleasurable to you and those around you.

 

Are There Generational Curses?

“… and I shall seem to be mocking him and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing.” Genesis 27:12

I’m not sure where we Christians get the idea that curses can be passed down. Recently a relative and I were talking about this subject. My relative said that another relative of ours is under the family curse.

I asked, “What curse is that? Nobody told me that we were under a curse.” I’ve never heard this, so I asked, “Where is this written in the Bible?”

Well, I’ve looked through different versions of the Bible and I still haven’t found this teaching on generational curses. There are generational sins but that’s another subject for another day. But, these two are not the same thing at all.

The whole subject came up because of my maternal grandfather. He was born out-of-wedlock to a teenage mom in 1898. My math tells me she was 15 1/2 yrs old when she gave birth to my grandfather in a rural community here in Western North Carolina. His dad was twenty. I’m not sure whether he was married then or not.

She didn’t keep her newborn boy so he was passed around to various family members. Somewhere in there he took his Dad’s last name. Even though, his dad rejected him and never claimed my grandpa as his son. Well, Grandpa looked strikingly similar to his father’s legitimate son so there you have it. And it was then and still is a rural community. No more than a crossroads with a store and a post office.

Now, this young woman had one more son out-of-wedlock about when she turned 18. With that birth she died. It might’ve been because of her experiencing a difficult delivery or her premature death might’ve been the result of catching influenza (flu).

There was no cure for influenza back then. And, there were “mini” outbreaks of it before the 1918 large scale death of the flu that swept across America because troops were trained in large group settings, and then passed through metro areas on their way to Europe. Many people who got it back then died from it.

So, what happened to my Grandpa to bring this idea of curses about? Even I’m not sure how to answer that one. I knew him and am pretty sure he would reject that idea also. Grandpa always had two things nearby that he read: his Bible and their local paper.

He was a WWI Navy veteran that went to the shores of France. After that he came back to WNC and moved to the largest town near where he grew up, Murphy, NC. There he met my Granny and they married about 1920.  They had four children, two sons and two daughters in that order.

I knew him to be a small frame man that might’ve been as tall as 5’6″ and weighed about 140 lbs. A lightweight to be sure, but he was a hard worker.

Both of my grandparents’ sons, my Uncles J. D. and Jack, were much taller and larger bone than their parents.  My mother, named June and her sister my Aunt Mary Jo, were both small frame women.

My grandpa was well educated for his time. A relative had the foresight to send him to Rome, GA to attend Berry’s School for Boys about 1914. There he learned carpentry and farming. Then, he entered the Navy in 1917.

Both he and my Granny were hard-working, honest, Christian people: “salt of the earth” type of folks. Together they made a strong couple. They farmed most all their lives together, which was about forty years.

Grandpa only spoke when he had something to say. He said what he meant and meant what he said. I think that must be a genetic trait because that was my mother’s style of communication, and pretty much mine, also.

His childhood experiences left him somewhat hard to deal with.  But, he lived his life on two main principles: truth and logic. What is the truth here and what is the outcome going to be? Those two qualities worked well for both my grandparents.

In time, they owned about 15 acres that included a small frame house. He and his sons enlarged the house, built an indoor bathroom, and all the family farmed about a quarter of the land. In my early years they still had a horse trained for pulling a plow, but had a tiller also.

My Grandparents saw both of their sons leave to join the Navy during WWII. Amazingly, both came home being in the same physical shape as when they left.

All their children lived by the practicable values they learned from their parents as well. My mother was a down-to-earth woman who was the major influence on us five children. My dad was more of a “think-outside-the box” idealist. He worked long hours honing his sales approach by selling restaurant equipment. And, all that work paid off for them through the years.

An example of that is about 16 years into my parents marriage my dad convinced my mother to follow one of his impracticable dreams of them becoming entrepreneurs. By both following dad’s dream they became wealthy and experienced their own American Dream.

My parents became successful small business owners and, in time, millionaires! Fortunately, my very practical mother controlled the outflow of the money. And, in part, that’s how they stayed wealthy.

I’ve used these principles for my life’s direction as well. No, I’m not a millionaire. Or at least not in monetary terms that is. But, I am known as being an honest, hard-working, Christian woman.

Over forty years ago, I married Jeff, who also shares these principles. We have three beautiful daughters named Ruth, Rachel, and Esther. And two blood grandchildren, and two step grandchildren.  We love them all very much.

Now, my Grandfather had no control over the circumstances that surrounded his birth. He did not choose his parents. No one does, all our parents are chosen for us. Yes his upbringing was harsh. That experience, I believe, left him short-tempered.

But, grandpa, granny, nor any of their four children, and not their seventeen grandchildren, and so on have ever been under a generational curse. That whole idea just doesn’t exist.

Outside of accepting Christ as your personal Savior than you, and I are or were under the curse of sin. That’s the only curse I’m aware of that affects us humans. That curse can be taken away by asking Jesus to come into your heart to take up residence inside you through the Holy Spirit.

I’m still not sure where this generational curse idea developed. It’s not Biblical. Nor is it even practical.

The above verse I chose for this blog shows that we bring either curses or blessings on ourselves. And that’s what I believe.